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had to turn off my sense of reality for a while but Terminator Dark Fate was better than I was expecting.

yeah the same story again again (updated, twists), but watchable none the less.

and anyway being robots (or whatever) it's ok for the bad-then-good-then-bad-then-good... characters to keep coming back. (as I said lower the reality filter)

so far one of the few remaining movie series they haven't turned into some sort of moral [clinical depression inducing] statement (the batman - dark knight and on) or made purely to show off the latest in special effects (latest john wick - cgi ad nauseam with barely any discernible plot). they also don't overdo whatever is the latest hollywood PC sickness

after many otherwise intelligent sounding suggestions that achieved nothing the nice folks at Technet said the only solution was to low level format my hard disk then reinstall my signature. Sadly, this still didn't fix the issue!

I do not have enough information to even estimate how may tons of oxygen a million humans require a day. (A ton is a million grams, one gram per person.) Can anyone put me on the right track?

Next question: How many plants does it take to produce a ton of oxygen a day? Obviously, a huge pine tree will produce more than, say, a tomato plant. I guess that plants will have to double as both oxygen and food sources; there wouldn't be room of huge forests within that plastic bubble. Do food plants vary a lot in their oxygen prodction capabilities? With Mars being roughly speaking at 1.5 times the Earth's distance from the sun, solar radiation is at 40-45% of Earth levels; I guess that could affect the photosynthesis.

When the type and required number of plants, of various kinds, have been determined, we could try to estimate how much water would be bound in these plants and their soil. Transporting that water from earth would be a major taks. So would be an effort to break it loose from the south pole ice-cap and transport it the 2500 km to equatorial land, melt it and heat it up to a temperature suitable for the plants. With no oxygen available, we can't use diesel trucks for transportation, or any tool requiring oxygen for cutting the ice.

(We obviously could cover half of the Martian surface with solar cells to produce electricity for electrolyzing the south pole ice cap, rather than using the water for growing plants. That is certainly not in the "sustainable" group of alternatives - and how much solar panels would it require? I suspect that the panels would all have to be brought from Earth.)

I really liked the kind of analysis made in The World Without Us[^] by Alan Wiesman, and wish that someone would make a similarly scientifically founded evaluation of the realism of a one million people Mars colony. Well, I suspect that it could easily end up more like Solar FREAKING Roadways, Are they REAL?[^] (i.e. not quite as respectuful as Alan Weisman's approach). Either would be interesting reading!

The engineering required for long-term presence on Mars is much more than provision of food, water, air, and power. On Earth, the Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere do a good job of protecting us. Mars has neither. The colonists would have to dig down to a depth of a few metres in order to protect themselves (and their crops) from radiation. We also have no idea how the radiation would affect the micro-biome that all of us carry around inside us. There are indications that quite a few diseases may be caused by the replacement in the gut of some benign bacteria by less benign varieties.

All in all, I would be very surprised if humanity has any permanent colony on Mars in 2050, to say nothing of a million people.

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.

The engineering required for long-term presence on Mars is much more than provision of food, water, air, and power.

Certainly! That is why I wish someone with a similar broad scientific background (and as many contacts in the scientific community) as Alan Weisman would take on such a project. When I read The World Without Us, there were quite a few points I never had considered before. On Mars there must be ten times as many!

It certainly would be fascinating read, but I guess it would be sort of depressing to a large number of SciFi fans.

Check out Biosphere 2 - Wikipedia[^].
That's where they basically attempted to do this right here on good ol' Earth and failed quite spectacularly.
Creating a biosphere is extremely difficult (a massive understatement).

There was a suggestion (and some design) by NASA about having something electromagnetically active at the Mars/Sun L1 point, such that it would divert the solar wind around Mars. At a million or so kilometers from Mars (which is about how far its L1 point is), you're talking about a far smaller device to shield the entire planet than trying to do it with an electromagnetic field actually around the planet. I found that discussion very interesting: theoretically, the device could power itself using the very radiation it would be deflecting... and other stories.

I was thinking about that. I propose we start building a list of preferred candidates for everybody to vote on!

If we start with all politicians and all lawyers, we should be well on our way towards a million...

Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephantAnonymous-The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuineWinston Churchill, 1944-Never argue with a fool. Onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.Mark Twain

As someday it may happen that a victim must be found
I've got a little list
I've got a little list
Of Elon Muskés colonists, living underground
And who never would be missed
They never would be missed
...

(With apologies to Messrs. Gilbert & Sullivan)

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.